Brody's gone off the grid and, jokes "Homeland" show runner Alex Gansa, he's either sporting a serious lumberjack beard right now or has "shaved his head completely." Meanwhile, Saul is the agency's senior guy, and Carrie's love for her man will be put on the back burner by necessity.

Some thoughts on "Homeland's" upcoming season by way of Gansa:

How Season 3 won't open:

"Exonerating Brody will be in the back of Carrie's mind, but as you will see when you tune in to the first couple of episodes, that is not the narrative engine that takes us through the first half of the season. It's there; she hopes to clear Brody at some point. But there's a whole lot more going on in her life than that."

"Perhaps not as much as we have. You have to understand where he is. He is the most wanted man on the planet. By definition, he's going to be hiding somewhere. And if he's hiding, that limits what he can do."

Does special agent Quinn regret not killing Brody?

"That's a very interesting question. If he hadn't had that last-minute pang of conscience and had actually offed Brody as he was tasked to, a lot of people would still be alive. But Quinn is going to be wrestling with a bunch of things this season — including that."

We do know that F. Murray Abraham's intelligence operative is still alive. Will we be seeing more of him?

"Yes. That's going to be a very interesting partnership between him and Saul. They have very different philosophies about what it means to be the Central Intelligence Agency."

Does less Brody mean, by definition, less of his family?

"A huge part of the beginning of Season 3 is where we find [daughter] Dana and how she reacted to seeing her dad essentially admit committing the act that he personally told her he didn't do. That father-daughter relationship has always been essential to Brody's emotional life. It's not going anywhere."